Naked Truth
by KateCayce
Summary: This story takes place between Second Chance and The Ball.82005 Now Complete! Hope it clears up paradoxes in The Ball.
1. Directions

All character other than Kate Cayce are the property of ABC  


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**NAKED TRUTH**

"Hey, Kate, you got the address we're supposed to meet Paul at?" Solomon turned around to look at his sister-in-law from the front passenger seat of the rental Vincent was driving.

"Yeah, it's in the fifth arrondissement on the rue Cuvier."

"Are you sure?" Solomon grinned at Kate.

"Duh, of course! I don't get directions wrong." Kate stuck her tongue out at Solomon as he laughed and turned forward again.

"Who is it we are meeting?" Nikko had been asleep when the others were talking over this meeting. He was fighting off the after affects of a bad head cold he got from Juliet. _That'll teach me not to kiss her when she's sick._

"Paul's contact from here in Paris. I guess he found some more out about that temple you guys destroyed a few years ago." Kate crossed her arms and smirked at her men.

Vincent coughed slightly. "It was necessary to get away from Tollan's men."

"Yeah, right." Kate answered sarcastically. "Oh, I think it's right here."

Vincent drove the car into the nearest empty space. The four of them got out and walked to the building Kate was pointing at.

"Paul said it was the fourth door on the right in the upstairs hallway."

"Could he get any more vague?" Solomon muttered to himself, since he was used to some of Paul's directions.

"Yeah, he could have said the red door." Vincent laughed.

The team went up the staircase and stopped in front of the flat they had been directed to. After knocking for a couple of minutes, the four of them began to look at each other, wondering what was up.

"Maybe this guy stepped out to the local café?" Nikko wondered.

"Paul said he would meet us at precisely 1 in the afternoon at this flat." Kate was pulling out her cell phone.

"Are you calling Paul?" Solomon leaned on the door jam.

"Yeah, but I just got his service." Kate thought for a second. "Let me call Gianni and see if he knows anything."

"That won't be necessary." Tollan was blocking the way they had come up, and some of his goons were blocking the other end of the hallway, and they all had their guns out.

"Can we set one foot out of New York without you showing up?" Solomon was more than a little disgusted.

"If you would be so kind as to let my men inject you with a mild tranquilizer so your journey will be more pleasant."

Vincent barked out a laugh. "How can we be sure that it isn't something stronger?"

Tollan looked a bit surprised. "We only want to interrogate you." He walked up to Solomon and smiled. "We like the chase too much to destroy you."

Tollan's men tranquilized the team, and then led them downstairs to a van waiting at the curb. The four Veritas people were handcuffed and blindfolded before then van moved from its parking space.

Quite some time later, the van finally stopped. Tollan directed his men to take the captives to a room on the second floor of an old estate house.


	2. The Room

A little while after the team was left in a bedroom; they slowly wake up, one by one.

Solomon shook the cobwebs out of his head and looked around the room. He had been placed in a chair by the window, Nikko was next to him on a small sofa, and Kate and Vincent were sharing the bed. Vincent was already awake, but Kate and Nikko were still out cold.

"Do you know where we are?" Solomon asked Vincent as the two men both hesitantly got to their feet.

Vincent went to the window and pushed the heavy curtains aside. "Somewhere in the countryside outside Paris. The sun hasn't moved that much, so we haven't been out for very long."

The men both turned quickly when they heard Kate stir on the bed. "I feel as if a herd of elephants are stomping through my head."

"The drug they gave us must have affected you more." Vincent helped his wife into a sitting position.

"Why isn't Nikko awake yet?" Kate looked over at her nephew, still unconscious.

"Because my head is pounding so hard that if I move it, it will break." Nikko slowly pried an eyelid open and looked at his family.

"Are you okay?" Solomon moved over to his son's side.

"I think I am still in one piece, but my head is going to fall off soon."

Everyone's head whipped around to look at the door, causing them all to wince slightly. They watched as some of Dorna's goons came into the room.

"Doctor Zond, will you please come with us?" The head goon politely asked.

Solomon looked at his family, kissed Kate, and followed the men out of the room.

"What are they going to do to him?" Nikko asked Vincent, who was the Dorna expert.

"Tollan will probably interrogate him about something that Dorna wants." Vincent looked at Kate with a worried look. "I wonder what has caught Tollan's eye this time."

"Maybe that thing that Paul was having us talk to the guy about?" Kate snuggled closer to her husband.

"That could be it. If so, then we don't know much. Yet."

Kate moved away from Vincent and stood up. She began to pace around the room, and then something began to dawn on her. "Vincent, we've been in this room before."

"How do you know?"

Kate turned to him with tears in her eyes. She beckoned him over to the armoire. "I know that because there will be a video monitor in this. And Solomon will be on the live feed."

Vincent opened the doors to the armoire, and immediately saw the monitor. He looked at Kate before turning it on, and jumped when he heard Solomon's interrogation being conducted somewhere in the building.

"Wow, Aunt Kate, how did you know that?" Nikko got up and joined them.

Kate turned to her nephew, her cheeks wet with tears. "Because this is where we were ten years ago when…" her voice was hardly above a whisper, "when Tollan had them kill Augustus."

Vincent gently laid a hand on Kate's shoulder. "This doesn't look like the same room we were in then."

Kate turned to him. "They changed the wallpaper and the layout of the room, but the furniture is the same and my initials are carved into the door of the armoire."

Vincent turned back to the armoire and soon found the letters KLCS etched into the wood.

"I am so sorry about what happened back then." Nikko took his aunt's hand and tried to comfort her.

Kate pulled him into a hug. "The last time, it was just Vincent and I, so we didn't have any company when the other was being interrogated. Just you being here is a big help."

Vincent put his arms around his wife and nephew to join in the group hug. "I think we should pay attention to what is going on to Solomon so when it is our time, we will know what to say."


	3. Game Set Match

After a few hours of Solomon telling Tollan that he didn't know anything more about Monsieur Charoux than he had already told him, Solomon was taken back to the suite where the rest of the team was being held.

"Hey Dad, I guess you didn't know anything?" Nikko teased his dad after the goons left the room.

Solomon had to laugh. "Yeah, Tollan thinks we already knew something about Charoux that Paul may have told us."

Kate snorted. "He couldn't even give us good directions to the man's flat!"

Everyone stopped laughing abruptly when the door opened again.

One of the goons gestured to Kate. "Doctor Siminou, please come with us."

Kate looked at Solomon and Vincent for a minute, raised an eyebrow, smiled and then left in front of the guard.

Solomon waited until the door clicked shut. "Why would he want Kate?"

"Maybe Tollan wants to play with our minds for a bit. Kate realized this is the room we were held in ten years ago." Vincent showed Solomon the initials scratched into the armoire.

Solomon kicked the side of the bed. "Damn. How did she react?"

Vincent sat down on the bed. "She got a little emotional, but she held up well."

"Are you guys worried about her breaking down or something?" Nikko asked.

Solomon got a good look of the man his son was becoming. "Yeah, I'm worried about Kate. It took a long time for her to recover from Augustus. But I think a lot of that was her still trying to deal with Haley's death, and even her parents' deaths."

Vincent nodded as the monitor crackled to life.

The men watched as the goons pressed Kate into a chair in front of Tollan's desk.

"_Do you know anything about your parents' car crash?"_

Solomon and Vincent looked at each other, startled and confused.

"_I don't know what you are talking about." Kate replied._

"Good girl, don't let him rattle you." Solomon coached his sister-in-law from a few floors away.

"_Did you know that there were no bodies found in the car?" Tollan leaned back in his chair and._

"What!" Solomon shouted at the same time Kate did on the monitor.

"_What do you mean by that?" Kate was almost out of her chair, leaning toward Tollan's desk._

"_Your mother and father's bodies were not in the car when it crashed." Tollan smiled wickedly._

"_And what does that have to do with the here and now?" Kate was confused and mad._

"_Because you should know a few things about your beloved parents." A woman's voice came from somewhere behind Kate._

"That voice sounds familiar." Solomon looked at Vincent, suddenly nervous.

"_And who are you?" Kate turned around as she asked the question._

"_Kate, I would like you to meet my mother, Katherine Tollan."_

_The woman walked out of the shadows behind Kate._

"Oh, my God." Solomon was saved from falling over by Vincent and Nikko on either side,

"_My mother's full name is Katherine Louise Grayson Tollan Cayce Tollan." Tollan sneered at Kate._

Vincent and Nikko both gasped.

"_Katie, darling, aren't you going to greet me?" Katherine asked her daughter, honey dripping off her tongue._

_Kate's hands were gripping the chair arms tightly. "My mother and father died in a car crash nearly twenty-five years ago."_

"_Darling, we were never even in that car."_

The men in the suite could see that Kate had closed her eyes. _"This is some sick joke you decided to play on us Tollan. Getting some lady who has a slight resemblance to my mother to pretend to be her is the lowest you have ever gone!"_

_Katherine sat on the edge of the desk and grabbed Kate's chin to get her attention. "Kate, you really must listen to your mother!"_

_Kate whipped her eyes open. "My mother died twenty-five years ago. So did my father. You are not her."_

_Tollan leaned back in his chair and chuckled. "I have to disagree with you, Kate. This woman you see is your birth mother, Haley's birth mother, and my birth mother."_

"Oh that is just sickening!" Nikko was looking like he might be sick any moment.

Solomon looked at his son with surprise. "Don't like your uncle, boy?"

"_If you are my mother, then where is my father?" Kate raised an eyebrow as she challenged her mother._

"_Thank God I missed your teen years." Katherine smiled._

"Yeah, but I have plenty of stories," Solomon snapped at the monitor.

"_Your father escaped from our custody quite some time ago. I am truly surprised that he hasn't contacted your or his old college buddies yet." Katherine had contempt in her voice when she referred to her husband's friends._

"_Don't you dare talk about Alex or Paul that way! They've at least been there for me and Haley!" Kate was getting angry at Katherine._

_Katherine brought her face down to Kate's. "And I suppose Vicky and Theresa were good surrogate mothers?"_

"_A lot better than you."_

_Katherine leaned back and looked down her nose at her younger daughter. "You are as much a fool as you father."_

"_What do you mean by that?"_

"_Let me spell this out for you. I was married before your father. I was still married to my husband when I 'married' Jonathan Cayce. I was sent undercover to marry you father to keep him busy and to keep him and his friends from pursuing the truth. Your sister was a ploy to cement his interest in me. You were insurance to keep him even busier. When you were twelve, I was told by my superiors here at Dorna to get out and to come back home. So I faked my death and your father was our prisoner for a number of years. Is this clear enough for you?"_

_Kate looked up at Katherine. "You are a complete bitch." Kate looked around her mother to look at Tollan. "Are we done here yet?"_

_Tollan was trying to smother a smile. "Not quite yet. There is the matter of your son."_

_Kate's fingers tightened on the chair arms. "What do you mean?"_

"_His death was not an accident." Tollan smiled smugly._

"What?" Vincent clenched his fists at the monitor as Solomon and Nikko restrained him.

"_We wanted to hurt Vincent as much as he hurt us." Katherine laughed._

"_You sadistic bitch! He wasn't even born yet!"_

"_And the harder he fell."_

"_Yes, it was quite some time before your husband and brother-in-law troubled us with their interference." Tollan leaned back.  
_

"_May I be excused from this hell of a family reunion?" Kate's exhaustion was evident in her voice._

_Tollan gestured to one of his goons by the door. "Take Doctor Siminou back to the suite. Oh, and Kate? Welcome to the family, sis."_

Kate heard Tollan's laugh echo in her ears as she was taken back to the suite.


	4. After

After Kate was safely back in the room, the guards told them they were being taken back to Paris. After an uneventful ride back to the city, they were let off at the hotel they were staying at.

Nikko collapsed into an armchair as Calvin let them into their rooms. "What a day!"

Cal looked at the four of them. "What happened?"

"Yes, what happened?" Maggie echoed him as she and Juliet entered the room.

Kate closed her eyes briefly, then launched into the truth. "Well, it seems that my mother and father did NOT die in the accident. Oh, and Tollan is my brother."

"What!" Maggie, Calvin and Juliet all exclaimed.

Solomon chuckled. "It was one hell of a family reunion."

Kate started laughing maniacally at that. "Oh, that's a good one! No, really, my mother is Tollan's mother, my father is out there somewhere," she spread both arms out wide, "and I think I am brain-dead."

Vincent put his arm around his wife, pulled her close, and kissed the top of her head. "We are all still here."

"And we will start looking for Jonathan as soon as we get home." Solomon took Kate's free hand and kissed it.

Kate leaned into her husband and gripped Solomon's hand tighter. "Part of me knows that, but that was lot to take in."

"We all need to take a lot more care when it comes to Dorna and their goons." Solomon looked at all the members of his team. "They could be gunning for us even more now that we know the truth about Kate's parents."

"I will step up security immediately." Vincent reached for the room's phone.

"Solomon?" Kate pulled him into a corner.

"What's on your mind?"

"Why now? They could have gone on forever letting me believe that my parents were dead."

Solomon hugged his sister-in-law close. "My guess is that your father may be getting close to us. Or to the truth. Don't forget that my dad, your dad, and Paul got us all started on finding the truth."


End file.
